6i NOTES ON FIELDS AND CATTLE. 



Mind and do your little pigs well. The sow should 

 be richly fed throughout the nursing, so that when 

 you wean the litter they shall be pretty stout to start 

 on their own account. Still, at the best, it is a 

 ticklish period when they are first put over the nest. 

 Ruinous as cruel is the policy of stinting an infant. 

 It is far better for you to keep half-a-dozen in good 

 trim, ready ever for pork or winter baconers, than 

 half-a-hundred trotting everlastingly, semi-fed, about 

 the fold-yard — scabby, wizen-looking, and pot-bellied 

 — in anxious search for anything to pacify the pangs 

 of their hunger. Starved in infancy, young stock 

 seems to lose not only size, but in a great degree its 

 aptitude to fatten. 



It is best to reserve for breeding the sows which 

 have about ten or twelve teats. Retain not, however, 

 more than nine of a litter, if you get so many. It is 

 curious how jealously nature has taught the pigling 

 to recognise and adhere to his own peculiar one or 

 pair. A ludicrous instance of this I have this moment 

 on the farm, in the case of a lusty young monarch of 

 all he surveys — his brethren having come to an un- 

 timely end. This young representative, whom I 

 value for his lineage, is satisfied with the contents of 

 two teats ; the others having been allowed by some 

 mysterious natural process to dry up. He is certainly 

 stout enough, and may possibly drain more than he 

 has credit for by some plan of his own. The sow 

 going sixteen weeks with young (Yarrell says that 

 "the time of gestation is about one hundred and 

 twenty days, or rather more "), it should be managed 

 that the services of the accoucheur be required in 



